When it comes to sales management and personnel motivation, there is a right way and a wrong way to get results. The most successful management executives are those that realize a hierarchical, top-down approach is best. Set goals, train staff, sit back and wait for the revenues to roll in, right? Not so fast. Setting unilateral sales goals and demanding flawless execution doesn’t really work in the long term.
“People, especially salespeople, don’t like being dictated to,” says Joel Deceuster, founder of Deceuster & Associates, a consulting and business coaching firm. Rather than telling sales staff what to do, effective sales managers are inviting their sales people into the process. Yet managers are ultimately responsible to the front office for goal achievement and overall success, while also bridging the gap between corporate goals and staff achievement.
Sales managers today are overrun with new management techniques, unrealistic sales goals, harried sales people, and more information than they know what to do with. It can be hard to find solutions that allow them to achieve corporate sales expectations, while at the same time listening to their sales staff and responding to their needs.
Finding a solution that allows your organizations to capture sales best practices, competitive analysis and customer pain points is critical. A solution that allows sales staff to collaborate with management and peers to shorten the sales cycle and provides better consistency in sales performance is a must. After all my years as a sales executive, that’s why I am proud to represent a product like Compendian that does just that. But the point is that management needs to look into new innovative tools to make sure they are supporting and empowering the sales process.
Let’s face it; sales managers have a tough job. They have to be hard-nosed to get it done. But with the right solutions, and staff and management support, they can easily change tyranny to a benevolent dictatorship.
